Shakespeare's day but which, in fact, was built maybe ten years earlier on one of the converted wharves that line the river. The office crowd, plastic cups and cigarettes in hand, were making the most of the morning sun on the terrace overlooking the water, having picked up their late breakfast from the coffee shop.
I was hauled back to the sixteenth century. The bosun had stopped and was glaring theatrically at Kelly.
'Are you a malingerer?'
'No sir, no sir!' She pushed herself into my side a bit more for protection.
She was still a bit anxious about strangers, especially adult men.
The bosun grinned.
'Well, seeing as you're a special crew, and I know you're going to work hard, I'm going to let you have your rations. You'll be getting some special sailors' nuggets and Coke.' He spun around, his hands in the air.
'What do you say?'
The kids went bonkers: 'Aye aye, sir!'
'That's not good enough!' he bellowed.
'What do you say?'
'AYE AYE, SIR!'
The kids were shepherded by the bosun and the rest of the permanent crew toward the tables of food.
'Small sailors first,' he ordered.
'The tall sailors who brought you here can wait their turn.'
Kelly ran over to Josh's three--two girls, Dakota and Kimberly, aged eleven and nine, and a boy, Tyce, who was eight. Their skin was lighter than Josh's--their mother was white--but they looked just like their dad, except they still had all their hair. Which was a good thing, I thought.
Josh and I turned and looked out over the deck toward the Thames.
Josh waved back at some tourists who were waving from the boat, either at us or at the coffee morning still going strong to our left.
'How is she coping?' he asked.
'Getting better, mate, but the shrink says it'll take time. It's affected her schooling big time, she's way behind. The last lot of grades were shit.
She's an intelligent girl, but she's like a big bucket with holes, all the information's going in, but it just drips out again.'
'You think about what she's been through, man, for sure it's going to take some time.'
We turned to see all four of the kids throwing chicken nuggets down their necks. It was a strange choice for breakfast, but then again, I liked choc ice cream and fries first thing in the morning when I was a kid. The elder daughter wasn't getting on with Tyce today and Josh had to do a dad thing.
'Hey, Kimberly, chill! Let Tyce have his Coke--now!'
Kimberly didn't look too happy but obeyed. Josh turned back toward the river, took off his gold-rimmed glasses and gave them a wipe.
'She looks happy enough, that's a good sign.'
'It's the best she's been for ages. She's slightly nervous around adults, but with her friends she's OK. It means so much for her to see your lot.
Besides, it gives her a rest from me.' I couldn't bring myself to say that I found it wonderful to see him as well. I hoped he knew anyway.
We both looked out over the river with not a lot to say. He broke the silence.
'How's the job? Are you on permanent cadre yet?'
I shook my head.
'I don't think it will ever happen. They know I was involved in a lot more of the Washington stuff than I let on.' It pissed me off, because I needed a regular income these days. I had the money I'd rescued from last year's gang-fuck, but that wouldn't last forever. I grinned.
'Maybe I could turn to crime. Couldn't be worse than the shit I do now.'
He frowned, not sure if I was being serious or not, and tilted his head in the direction of the huddle of small sailors, as if to remind me of my responsibilities. He put his specs back on and focused on a black guy in an old, shiny blue tracksuit who had set up shop at the corner of the pub, selling the Big Issue and chatting up the women walking past.
'It's OK for you,' I said.
'We don't have a training wing where I can go and put my feet up and still get paid.' I thought Josh was going to give me a lecture, so I put my hands up.
'OK, I surrender. I will sort my shit out-one day.'
In a way, I had sorted myself--a bit. With the money I'd diverted from the Washington job, 300,000 once the dollars were converted, I'd bought myself a house up on the Norfolk coast in the middle of nowhere. The village had a co-op on the corner and that was about it; a traffic jam was when the three fishing boats came into the harbor and their vans arrived at the same time to take the catch away. Otherwise, the busiest it got was when the postman rang his bell as he was going around the corner. I didn't know anyone; they didn't know me. If anything, they all had me down as an international drug dealer or some weirdo. I kept myself to myself, and that suited everybody just fine.
I'd bought a motorbike, too. At last I had the Ducati I'd always promised myself, and I even had a garage to put it in. But what was left--about 150,000--wasn't enough to retire on, so I still had to work--and I knew only one trade. Maybe that was why Josh and I got on; he was much the same as me, running his life like a conjuror, trying to keep all the plates spinning on top of their poles. His plates weren't spinning so well at the moment. Now that Geri had gone, one income wasn't enough, and he'd had to put the house up for sale.
Josh had had a tucker of a year. First his wife had got into yoga and all that mind-body-spirit stuff, then she'd ended up going to Canada to hug trees--or, more precisely, to hug the yoga teacher. Josh and the kids were shattered. Something had to give. He could no longer travel away from home with the vice-presidential crew, so he became one of the training team out in Laurel, Maryland. It was a very grand-sounding outfit-Special Operations Training Section--but a shit job for a man who was used to being in the thick of things. Then, two months after his wife left him, his friends Kev, Marsha and their other child, Aida, were hosed down, and he found he was an executor of the will--along with some dickhead Brit he'd never heard of called Nick Stone.
Between us we looked after Kelly's trust fund, and we'd been having some problems selling the family home. When it came down to it, who was going to buy a house where a whole family had been butchered? The property company was trying to pull a sleazy deal so it could get the land back. The insurance companies had been trying to give Kelly a lump sum instead of making regular payments, because it was cheaper for them. The only people getting any money were the lawyers. There was something about it all that reminded me of my divorce.
I turned to him.
'It is good to see you, mate.'
He looked back and smiled.
'Same here, mate.' His piss-taking accent sounded more Australian than English. Maybe they got Neighbors in his part of Virginia, too.
There was really nothing more to be said. I liked Josh and we had a fuck of a lot in common, but it wasn't as if we were going to be sharing toothbrushes or anything like that. I'd decided after Euan turned me over to bin any idea of friendship with anyone else ever again, and to restrict myself to acquaintances--but this did feel different.
'Talking of shit,' I said, 'how's the quilt shaping up? The kids sounded really ecstatic about it last night.'
His eyes looked up at the sky.
'Fuck, man, it's been a nightmare. Two months of hoo-ha and the kids getting so high they might as well be on drugs.'
I had to laugh. I'd been following the buildup to this from Josh over the phone, but no one was going to stop him honking about it a bit more now.
'I've been to meetings, meetings about meetings, sewing classes, discussion groups, you name it; that's been my life for the last two fucking months.'
There was going to be a summit between the Israelis and Palestinians in Washington, D.C. Clinton was out to
